Competition Music!

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Just because I can :)

As a random aside, I'm tempted to use the new blogger features and convert my blog to arabic or cantanese, just because I can :)

*Ahem...*

Dearest blog

I regret that I have once again neglected you. Alas, it is due to the rather fast-paced and hectic life that I live. Of course, the fact that I have not been near an easily accessible internet connection for at least the last two months hasn’t really helped much in that regard…

So what has been happening? Well, following Christmas (YAY!) and New years (Not so yay…but only because most things fall short when compared to Christmas!), I went down to the coast for a lovely week of holiday with Duncan and Helen. We went to stay in Duncan’s grandmother’s holiday house in a little town called Sedgefield, on the southern coast of South Africa, near Cape Town.

It’s an amazing place! It’s close enough to the cape to not be as hot and humid as areas like Durban, which can become unpleasantly humid during summer. But at the same time, it’s hot enough for you to have the full summer beach-side experience: swimming, sunbathing, sun burning, mosquitoes…

It was made especially awesome because this holiday we engaged in an amazing new sport! Well, it’s not exactly a new sport, as it’s been around for some time. But it was a new sport to us. It was…*Drumroll*, GEOCACHING! It’s awesome! I totally love it!

The idea is this. People create a cache (a small container that will have knick-knacks and things in it, usually not of any considerable value) and hide it somewhere. Then, they record the GPS coordinates of where the cache has been hidden, and publish these coordinates on the internet, on a website. Others can then go and download the coordinates and go seek out the cache. Once found, the person must then remove an item from the cache, and replace it with a new item. This way, items can get passed on all over the world (it’s an international thing…).

Some of these items, called travel bugs, are tagged. This means that they literally have a little dog tag attached to them that has been engraved with a number. This number can then be checked on the internet site and the item’s movements around the world can then be tracked. Each cache’s discovery is supposed to be logged on the site and that way, the site is constantly updated so that any caches that are moved or removed can still be accessed. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work…